When change is needed but when prayer is reallly needed instead …..call for prayer today and until things are through changing around here…. ….again I am sorry ….yes to my children and grandchildren I am sorry for teaching you the correct way to do things…I am sorry to have to watch as others take the glory for your hard work while never lifting a finger ……I truely hate free loading want a be workers that always get things like more pay .more awards …more attention for work they never did nor do while people that do the job only get shit on …..seems it is time to develop a new type of t paper for the ones whom are really true shit….the new type of t paper would wipe them off the planet for good and would explode in flames when they were through wiping their behinds…..the photo today is about looking back …someting we all should do from time to time …looking back…. i raised you the way i was rasied …I FORGOT that it was about doing the right thing alway and never about awards,,money,,nor attention it was about being your best and getting the job done correct the firat time …. .I need lots of prayer to stay focused for next few months …..a lot of things are changing ……one can only hope and pray it is for the best even when it hurts……

We are beginning break up here in Alaska….we still have lots of snow and ice ,no spring green yet….so our green for saint paddy’s day comes from the heavens ….not sure why I continue to try to capture the lights ….it never measures up once I get to the computer to edit …but I am having fun …. if it matters I still do get excited when viewing from the back of camera…..the numbers on the data page and the info from many web cams screamed storm ….. everyone seems to capture a different storm

…most of their shots were true to raining auroras…mine were just lots of green with just tinges of pinks and reds and moving so fast ….made your head and tripod dance in high gear….. early in the storm I watched the skies

… read the many pages of aurora chasers ….I can never stop laughing at the ones who think because they are taking photos everyone should bow down to their work….and their made up rules

…..their many post of aurora watching etiquette……no joke there are 18 or more pages of these fine rules on the net …..my come back to theses fine rules and guide lines…. GET A LIFE…if your shots are that important find a new spot away from all the hot viewing spots…..

it has become a very sad world when one makes rules for others on how they should act when viewing nature …… no one should have to worry about lights on a vehicle because it cause light that will ruin your photo

…no one should have to worry about your camera and tripod in the dark … try putting glow in dark reflective tape on the bottom of you tripod …

why should I have to look for another spot to view auroras just because you are taking photos….and if you are in the dark bundled up in dark clothes you need to try putting reflective tape on your aurora shooting clothes …it is your life

…yes I am a driver of an auto but you have to be responsible as well……why do all your rules of etiquette tell the new viewer or aurora shooter what to do …..what about you …why do you feel that you are in charge of a public place …I hope every new viewer turns on their lights …holds their foot on the brake light…trip over your unmarked tripod …invades your public space…..and scared you when they almost run over you ….come on people it’s a big world and a bigger state and the last time I looked the sky over head did not belong to anyone

climbing down off soap box and going back outdoors to take more shots of the awesome world ….Still Standing MOM …I AM STILL STANDING

Today is our day to go to accountant and get the bad news of what we owe…..we know already we will owe …… owe big time…..but that is life ….we could have …or should I say we should have paid in so this would not be the fact ….but keeping warm and having a full belly and just plain life dictated differently…… so here we are …..the front clump of snow in the photo says it all we are here but it could have been different …

so off we go with our hand full of papers that took their own sweet time getting here …and our bellies churn ….. thoughts of all the things going on around us scream louder than the keys of the accountants computer ….

Somehow our paying in is supposed to be what the government thinks we all should do….. seems to me back some where in history we fought so we would not be so taxed ……we seem to tax everything any more that makes someone else feel threaten … or makes other feel good…. not sure there is anything not taxed of late ….soft drinks,cigs,gas,phone,net,booze, soon it will be the grill you grill on …..

the little windsock hanging in the tree has been hanging there since fourth July ……when we first hung it up it blew back and forth in the wind ……but some time during the deep dark winter it began to hang on to the tree with each wind it clung tighter ….sort of like us hard earning people of the USA …we are strong and we will play the game til it is time to unclench our fist and step forward in battle …. we go now to the tax collector and give it our all ….I MEAN OUR ALL…..

Bump bump ….hurry up …move on….what is the hold up?….what are we sitting here for …. can we cross now….why are stop signs always red…hey leave me be I was only shaking off some ice…..hey you there you have a five o’clock shadow ….. hey I like your new shape….is it just me are does the new snow make me look bigger…..hey anyone back there willing to step up front I am melting ……
Can you hear them ….maybe I have been locked up inside to long …things just look different in the sunlight…..
Still Standing MOM….I am still standing ….

It finally happen ….we both could get together…..even when it looks like we aren’t
talking our cameras are…….we see the same light …we hear the same light …yes
hear light …it twirls around your lens and gathers force that makes you click the button that captures and draws the vision into your disks

…I needed the time out and about with like mind ….it was windy,cold to the bone but very,very sunny …I HAD FUN…thanks Vicky Padgett for an awesome time……she drove us around on very icy roads

…at temps that belonged at the real north pole …..the walk about we were not chasing the sun it was standing still for us…..it flickered off the ice and the tips of the trees

finding its way in to the tracks of the animals

…..we hear airplanes over head …birds……snowmachiners….. it was the refreshing day both for us cabin bound people along with our cameras that are starved for light of day…….but our short visit with the great outdoors and the beautiful sun had to come to a stop….

we had to stop and take photos of the piles of snow around the stop sign

all the little mounds of snow looked like they were waiting to cross the roads…. what a day ..what crazy thoughts ….here is my favorite shot of the day

A trip to town to delivery eggs and stop at bread store…to get day old bread for chicken feed addition…..then on to Clinic to get scripts to take to Va hospital to fill…I always sit in truck and wait ….hospitals and clinic are full of sick people….not a place to go if you are not sick….

we have some of the really smart raven in Fairbanks ….from early age they learn the outline of garbage bags in backs of trucks …they seem to know the difference between an Alaskan suitcase and a bag full of food….

they works in triples …one to find the gem …one to check it out and one to keep the owner for seeing the others steal said person blind….I am always on the look out for them…

I want to spend a day just taking their photos ….seems like when I do have my camera they are just feet out of the shooting range and when I don’t have my camera they are up and close talking then fluffing their head feathers and rolling their awesome eyes

….they are so smart …they have the most beautiful feathers ….and their hip hop walk is so funny to watch….I have seen as many as 50 in the Sam’s Club parking lot walking in a circle and then running at each other…. then they would throw back their heads and open their beaks and jiggle their heads up and down as if they were in some secret meeting of their family

….once saw a raven pick up a smoke that someone had dropped it was still lit the raven swallowed it down than every time he would open his beak out would come smoke or steam …either way it was silly to see….the photos here are of one shot I managed to capture the morning of the trip ….I played in picasa3 program with different ways the photos can look…..

Of what value are you to someone…..???Back in 2009 I joined Facebook …..many had said “You will lose your personal info …there are mast murders….hackers will steal things…. don’t join…..But I joined anyway ….I had the best Farmville farm without paying and I could find eggs with the top egg hunters….but best of all is the fact that news travels on Facebook faster than a speeding light from heaven…….Couple nights back a friend on Facebook told us that she was dying ….the way she told us and the things she told us ….were heart tearing ..belly deep tears welled up in me …..I meet this lady on the river banks of the Chena River ….we were both taking photos of the racers ….her and her husband were there with their Friend Manny the Monkey …. we did not meet per the normal…. Howdy, Happy to meet you ….no she had turned to adjust her camera and slipped and fell…as I started toward her …she jumped up and dusted the snow off and turn back to business…. Manny the Monkey was how I found her on Facebook …she cooks an awesome looking meals and shares the photos …her and Manny watch football and she loves to take photos that she shares….that is as close as we have gotten for actually meeting…when she told us all the other night of her new journey of life …I CRIED worst than I did when My mother passed over…..she talked about how she would be the auroras that danced in the sky…..last night as I stood under the lights I remember her word ….and the words of an elder native man the first time I every saw the lights ….We had gone shopping and were at the old Fred Myers I was standing and looking up and telling the children to look …the elder man stopped ….he asks if it was my first time seeing the lights ..I said yes …he said it is your family that has passed over speaking of their joy …..when my Facebook friend said the following ...”This will be my last season to dance under the aurora, because next season, I shall dance WITH them, among those who have gone on before me”

..I was thrown back 35 years in time …..

Family comes in so many forms and so many colors….I am so happy I did not listen to the nay sayers…because I came to know this awesome family I have on Facebook….

“Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.” ~Dinah Craik, A Life for a Life, 1859